Wood veneers are used extensively in the furniture and engineered flooring industries. Veneers can provide the appearance of a solid wood product while greatly reducing scarce hardwood consumption and costs. Unfortunately, finished veneer products are prone to checking, that is, the formation of cracks in the finish and their propagation along the wood grain. Checking may arise when the veneered product shrinks or expands due to external humidity or temperature changes that may in turn change the veneered product water content, especially when the veneer surface layer and underlying layer or core shrink or expand at different rates or to different extents. Checking may be especially common over lathe or knife marks (low areas or splits in the veneer caused by the veneer slicing equipment). Veneer manufacturers undertake a number of measures to discourage checking, such as the measures mentioned in C. L. Forbes, Understanding and Minimizing Veneer Checking on Furniture Panels (1997), a paper available at http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/nreos/wood/wpn/venchk.htm. Other references relating to veneer manufacture, veneer checking or its avoidance, or to wood coatings in general include U.S. Pat. No. 5,095,069 (Ambrose et al.), U.S. Pat. No. 5,242,490 (Maner), U.S. Pat. No. 5,635,248 (Hsu et al.), U.S. Pat. No. 5,866,270 (West, Jr.), U.S. Pat. No. 6,203,915 B1 (Prissok et al.), U.S. Pat. No. 6,231,931 B1 (Blazey et al.), U.S. Pat. No. 6,299,944 B1 (Trapani), U.S. Pat. No. 6,342,273 B1 (Handels et al.) and U.S. Pat. No. 6,635,142 B1 (Stula et al.); and Japanese Published Patent Application Nos. JP 8-267412 (Matsushita Electric Works, Ltd.) and JP 9-254106 (Nippon Shokubai Co. Ltd.).